Thursday, August 16, 2007

Eric Weinrich faced a bit of uncertainty this summer about the future of his hockey career. He knew he would fit into the Portland Pirates' plans somewhere, and in recent months he continued to train as if he was preparing for another season.

Now he has answers: The 40-year-old defenseman will return to the Pirates as a player in the 2007-08 season.

Sure, it's easy to poke fun of guys like Weinrich and Luke Richardson, who reach their best-before dates and continue to play, but I honestly have a lot of respect for veterans who opt to play in the AHL to finish their careers.

Weinrich originally retired and signed on as an assistant coach with the Pirates last summer, but really wanted to play and became a regular on the blueline in January. Now, he's back for another go.

Here's a guy with nearly 1,200 NHL games played, and he's not quite ready to stop. The Pirates are essentially a hometown team for the veteran, and he's said it's been a real thrill to play close to his family to end his career.

5 Comments:

I have nothing but respect for the guys who love the game so much that they are going to play as long as someone will give them a paycheck to do so. &$*# this whole idea that someone is embarrassing themselves, and just play the damned game. There are very few things that could entertain me more this baseball season than the Mets activating Rickey Henderson after rosters expand in September and putting him on the field.

Instead of paying to play in an adult hockey league, he's getting paid to play the game he obviously loves. If he's good enough to get an AHL (or NHL) roster spot and a paycheck, he might as well take the money and play some hockey.

Imagine a world where you get paid $20 a game to play instead of paying the same in league fees. Which one of us rec hockey schmucks wouldn't jump all over that. There's no shame in Weinrich's decision to keep playing the game he loves.

People on networks like ESPN need stuff to "debate", and that's pretty much where the embarrassment angle came from. One guy gets told in production to say it's embarrassing even though he doesn't believe it, and suddenly it's a viable argument.

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About Me

A sportswriter at The Globe and Mail, James covers the NHL and the game of hockey. He is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, a radio and TV analyst with TSN and was the NHL network manager at SB Nation from 2008 to 2010. A graduate of Thompson Rivers and Ryerson universities, James grew up in Kamloops, B.C. — one of Canada's great hockey cities — and was a season ticket holder in the Blazers' glory years.

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